So you’ve come back
to me, again, at last,
to leave—walked me this far
through crowds to say that, here,
you must turn a corner,
distance yourself,
throw this fiction of us on the pyre;
with a smirk on your face,
watch it burn—eyes in awe
as a patron of torture;
you, who would be most constant
when the caucuses of early hour
begin to bicker in the brain:
what word to hold you in place
beneath this captive’s power
or persuade a part of you
to concede itself to savior,
to haul this burden into some other life?